‘Archer’ Knocks at the Door of ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘South Park’

Ponder the paradox: Television’s most acclaimed scripted series are praised for their ever-deepening characters, yet some of its longest-running shows feature characters who, by many measures, evolve barely, if at all. They are animated series, “The Simpsons” and “South Park” foremost, and they seem as if they could run forever.

Knocking at the door to join their club is FX’s outrageously entertaining “Archer,” which begins its seventh season on Thursday night. Yet it’s not quite in the same mold. Its characters have core attributes that never change — lasciviousness, self-absorption, unfashionable biases of all sorts — but there is evolution as well. And that has never been more evident than in the new season, when the whole crew undergoes a career change. For six seasons, the title character, Sterling Archer, and his co-workers were in the espionage business. Henceforth, apparently, they will be in the private-investigation business.

“Archer” is at heart a workplace comedy. It’s about an agency full of misfits who undertake James Bond-like missions but spend an inordinate amount of time drinking, having sex with one another and assorted others, and disparaging this or that minority group.

In addition to Archer (the voice of H. Jon Benjamin, who also stars as Bob on “Bob’s Burgers”), there are his rather ruthless mother, Malory (Jessica Walter); his sexy fellow agent Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler); the geeky Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell); the creepy Dr. Krieger (Lucky Yates); the lusty Pam Poovey (Amber Nash); the fetish-loving Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer); and a few others. In the age of correctness, everything about these characters is incorrect, a caustic brand of humor that isn’t for everybody but that has brought the show a dedicated fan base.

Over the first six seasons, certain things about these characters were as constant as Homer Simpson’s craving for beer. Malory was just as likely to make an inappropriate remark about, say, Mexicans in Season 6 as she was in Season 1. Yet the show has dared to change as well.

There was the memorable fifth season, which was given its own title — “Archer Vice,” in tribute to “Miami Vice” — and had the gang trying to turn itself into a drug cartel to market a huge pile of cocaine. There was Lana’s pregnancy: Without telling Archer, she used a sperm sample of his to conceive, and at the end of Season 5, gave birth to their daughter.

There was also a change forced by real events. When the show began in 2009, the New York-based spy agency everyone worked for was known as the International Secret Intelligence Service and was usually referred to by its acronym. That’s right: ISIS. That eventually became a problem that the show’s creator, Adam Reed, couldn’t ignore. Early last season, workers were seen rolling the circular sign bearing the agency’s name out of its headquarters.

The new season may make all of the previous evolutions seem minor. This show, unlike some other animated hits, does have extended story arcs, and one too convoluted to detail here has led Archer and friends to get out of the spy business, relocate to Los Angeles and become private investigators. Cyril receives a promotion of sorts: He is the only one with the credentials needed to secure licensing for this new venture, and thus Episode 1 is called “The Figgis Agency.” In it, the novice investigators get their first big client: A legendary actress hires them to steal an incriminating computer disk.

The work is different, but personality-wise, Archer and his comrades are much the same. At least at first. The show seems to be giving itself license to explore.

“Cyril,” Malory says during one of her signature dressing-downs of the staff in Episode 2 of the new season, “you have been given the opportunity of a lifetime — a new job, a new city where no one knows you — which means you can reinvent yourself. You can be anyone you want. So why would you keep being you? And that goes for the rest of you. Don’t be the same feckless idiots you were when this was a spy agency.” Hmm.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Embracing Longevity With a Few Changes. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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